The present disclosure herein relates to an electronic device, and more particularly, to a multi-source signal generator and an operating method thereof.
Nowadays, a 5th-generation mobile communication (5G) standard for ultra-high speed communications is being developed using millimeter wave band frequencies. For South Korea and the US, 28 GHz band frequencies are allowed and being developed as 5G band. The international telecommunication union (ITU) discusses 32 GHz band and 40 GHz to 43 GHz band as frequency bands for 5G and many countries develop and demonstrate 5G technologies in different frequency bands from each other. In addition, for short range communication such as Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), ultra-high speed communication technology is being developed using 60 GHz Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) band. As a technical standard using 60 GHz band frequencies, ‘IEEE 802.11ay’ is being standardized which extends the transmission speed and distance from ‘IEEE 802.11 ad’. For ‘IEEE 802.11ay’, 4 channels are bonded to achieve the maximum transmission speed of 42.24 Gbps. Accordingly, ‘IEEE 802.11ay’ standard is recently being emerged as a proper solution to be applied to augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) technology.
Not only the communication technology, but fields such as imaging, radar, and spectrum use 100 GHz frequency or higher. A US company ‘TeraSense’ implements a signal source in 100 GHz to 140 GHz band using ‘IMPATT Diode’ and develops to sale imaging cameras, scanners, and signal sources. In addition, besides 60 GHz band, 120 GHz and 240 GHz band frequencies are designated as the ISM band, and thus utility thereof is very high.
Currently, a commercial use signal source chip of 10 GHz or lower for ‘IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac’ standards may be easily obtained. However, at a frequency of 30 GHz band or higher, it is hard to obtain a commercial use cheap signal source chip. A signal source in a frequency band of 30 GHz band or higher mostly configures a system according to a client's request by purchasing expensive equipment or using III-V devices. Due to the above-described issues, the development cost is high in an initial development stage and the development period is long. Therefore, development of a cheap complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) signal source is urgently required which supports a frequency band having a highest utility in a millimeter wave band or sub-terahertz (THz) band (30 GHz to 240 GHz).